Now this is some chutzpah…
The RNC is taking all kinds of heat for sending out a misleading fundraising mailer marked “Census,” even after the recent passage of a law aimed at banning such mailers. And now it’s blaming Democrats for writing what it calls unclear legislation.
Doug Heye, an RNC spokesman, told TPMmuckraker in a statement:
We were well within the new statute, as the committee will be of any further legislation on this issue. Any confusion is the result of vague or unclear legislative language. If the Democrats have this much trouble writing a relatively simple bill, how can they credibly write a coherent bill on health care, financial regulatory reform or jobs creation that run hundreds of pages?
The U.S. Postal Service is probing the mailer’s legality. Heye had previously said the RNC believes its mailer is within the law — passed last month unanimously in both Houses — without elaborating.
That claim appears to hang on the fact that the law applies to mailers that says “census” on the envelope. In the RNC’s mailer, that word appears through the window rather than on the envelope. New legislation introduced today by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) aims to close that loophole.
Earlier, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), whose office drafted the original legislation, slammed “the party of loopholes.”
